How I Met Your Mother season 9 episode 17, “Sunrise,” was about learning to let go of the red balloon, whether that be a girlfriend or a legacy.

Whatever you do in this life, it’s not legendary if your friends aren’t there to see it.

In a direct continuation from last week’s episode, Barney is still drunk and stumbling the roads beyond the Farhamton Inn when he runs into two 20-something guys, Justin and Kyle, who fear both girls and Barney’s current inebriated state. Barney assesses them and spends the entire episode giving them a makeover and passing on his womanizing, wild ways.

We know Barney and we know his antics, like how going to a strip club is just another Tuesday afternoon for him, but for two strangers who just ran into him stumbling alongside a deserted road, we can see how they’d hesitate to follow him to a second location. But against their better judgment, they enter the strip club.

After taking them to his tailor, Tim Gunn!, and making them ditch the Ted-esque wardrobe in favor of tailored suits, Barney brings them to a party for a rousing game of “Haveeee you met…?” It worked for Ted nine seasons ago and it works now for Justin. Barney certainly does have a way with words. Sometimes.

This is one of those times. As the sun rises, he hands the boys fistfuls of napkins and leaves with these parting words: “Whatever you do in this life, it’s not legendary if your friends aren’t there to see it.” Menial words in the context of “Sunrise,” heartwarming in the broader HIMYM universe. We can see the night he coerced Ted to go on the Drunk Train in season 7, or the night they all jumped from roof to roof in “The Leap,” the season 4 finale, flash in front of him.

On those napkins, we see “The Playbook” in scrawled handwriting. Barney might have burned the playbook to show his devotion to Robin, but this was the symbolic burning: he has officially passed the baton to the new generation. Perhaps this was a subtle nod to the upcoming How I Met Your Dad.

If you love something, you can never let it go or it’ll be lost forever.

Ted once had a red balloon for a best friend. But little Ted apparently didn’t know how helium worked because he let go of the balloon and watched it disappear up into the sky, to be lost forever. Nearly 30 years later, that lesson still resonates with him.

In ascending order, Ted’s best relationships were with Stella, Zoe, The Slutty Pumpkin, Marshall under special circumstances and Victoria. Too bad Ted doesn’t see it that way. Side note: we know a lot about these people’s lives, but Robin revealing the running email chain about Ted’s many, many girlfriends brings a smile to our face.

There is no top five for him, there’s a top one, and it is Robin. Ted tells Robin that he’s moving to Chicago to avoid any awkward interaction with her as Mrs. Robin Stinson, giving the same excuse he gave Lily: a lot of good things happened to him in New York City, but a lot of bad things happened too.

Will Ted ever be able to let Robin go? Even after he falls in love with the Mother, he will always have that time between meeting Robin and the Mother where he could not hold a relationship because of Robin (and, okay, maybe he would’ve gone through with the Stella wedding, but he always has the Robin Conversation with his girlfriends).

He may have physically/metaphorically let go of Robin tonight in “Sunrise” a la his best friend, the red balloon, but when “Eternal Flame” is playing to underscore it, we have our doubts.

Throughout all this, we learn Ted has talked to Stella, Victoria, and Jeanette within the past week to find Robin’s locket and give it to her as a friend. Victoria had it and seemed to take pity on him, overnighting it from her bakery in Germany, but Jeanette ends up signing for it. They meet on a bridge and – you probably can see this coming – she cannot believe he is still hung up on Robin and throws the locket into the water below.

Ted gives the typical “I love her so much that I have to let her go” speech that reinforces our trepidation above about him really letting go of Robin. In the end, the locket is gone.

Ghost of Lily past, present, and future

Meanwhile, Marshall tries to get a peaceful night’s sleep, but instead dreams of his father, 2007-Lily, and 2014-Lily to try to sort through his emotions. 2014-Lily points out that their relationship will begin to dissolve, little by little, if he continues to lie and make the Big Decisions without her.

We don’t know who picked Lily up last week, nor do we know where she went. All we know is that she came back. And after what future-Ted calls the worst fight of their marriage, that is what’s important.

She concedes that they’ll stay in New York, and Marshall seems so relieved about both the fact she came back to make up, and that they’re not moving to Rome.

‘How I Met Your Mother’ will return on February 24 with ‘Rally.’

Robin has always been the one and them trying to make me believe this season that she belongs with Barney has only pushed me away from the series and left me feeling like I just wasted 9 years of my life just to find out the cool guy who has always been a jerk to women is going to get the girl while the sensitive smart uncool guy had to watch it all unfold

g

I agree, monkey boy!

Meghan Carlisle

I love this show so, so much…but I just don’t know about this Ted/Robin story. We’ve known from day one that it’s not Robin and yet after all these years it’s still there. I know you can’t help how you feel but still. When Barney proposed to Robin one of the things he said was if Ted told her that it meant he had moved on, and I thought, “Ok, that’s a good way to close that.” Nope here we still are. We’re in the final seven–how are we gonna go from Ted moving to Chicago because he’s still in love with Robin to The Mother/The One in that time? I’m sure they’ll do this fantastically, I’m just curious is all.

CalebJackson14

I think it’s still over yet I think Ted does have the locket and he will give it to her when she asks him into the bride’s dressing room. Since he lied about talking to them I think he still has it. I think that it won’t be over until Ted meets the mother (who I think her name is Daisy because of the title on episode 20) at the train station. Although none of my predictions have ever came true.

CalebJackson14

*not over

Joseph Fuchs

I’m putting my money on “Dottie” referencing Pee Wee’s bicycle.

RoseRed

Regarding Ted and his feelings for Robin and as this article put it, having the Robin-talk with future girlfriends, I think the mother will be just fine. Because we learned something very important about her last week, her boyfriend and the man she believed to be the love of her life died. And we also saw that she was really never able to move on and love again. So she will get what Ted is going through 100%. Actually I think it’s really beautiful that they are giving us two characters who think that they will never love again, and end up falling in love with each other.

Meghan Carlisle

I like that!! Well done! :)

MoeMoe

Great episode, glad Marshall and Lily’s fight didn’t escalate.
I don’t agree with monkey boy, she isn’t right for Ted.
oh and I don’t know why everyone doesn’t like Zoey, all she did was fight for the arcadian, the same way Ted fights for Robin, she shouldn’t be on his worst relationship list. And other than that she was a good gf.

on a different note it’s shattering to see Barney of all people move on and giving those two the playbook. glad that he’s happy and all but the world has to have a Barney and those other two won’t be the same lol.

This show is the best, It’s sad to see it go away but it had to happen, don’t know whether it would be as good as this.

Mark

Does anyone know the quote that Ted said on the bridge about love and never letting go?

fanboy

Ive been looking for that for the past hour, can’t find it anywhere!

Pintsizedelle

“If you are looking for the word that means caring about someone beyond all rationality and wanting them to have everything they want no matter how much it destroys you, it’s love. And when you love someone you just, you don’t stop, ever. Even when people roll their eyes or call you crazy, even then, especially then. You just, you don’t give up, because if I could give up, if I could just take the whole world’s advice and move on and find someone else that wouldn’t be love that would be some other disposable thing that is not worth fighting for. That is not what this is” Along those lines haha :)

vexorian

oh, this series would have blown so much without Cobie Smulders.

Logan

This is still in 2013, meaning it’s 2013-Lily, not 2014-Lily. Remember, season 9 has taken place entirely in one weekend so far.

somegirl91

I really liked Ted’s rant on the bridge about love and letting go. I hope they are able to show us properly that when Ted meets the Mother, he really does properly get over Robin and isn’t hung up on her anymore.
Also, Robin floating away into the sky at the end was a bit weird. I get what they were doing there, but it looked a little silly.

Kent

I thought it was supposed to be really cheesy as a joke, I laughed out loud… Although it was a huge change of tone, hmmm.

Sydne

I assumed it was Ranjeet that picked Lily up after the fight.

Meghan Carlisle

I’m wondering if it was The Mother.

Sydne

Could it have been? I thought that around that same time she was singing La Vie En Rose on the balcony.

Meghan Carlisle

Ah, true!

maleriethegood

The ghost Lily’s and the fact that she and Marshall got over a fight like that so quickly was stupidly unrealistic. I thought that was one of the most real fights on television and then they ruined it by not really going there, but just resolving it as quickly as possible. Also, Robin floating in the air? Weird and stupid. It’s just hard to get emotionally invested in Robin and Ted’s talks or any of the story line when you know it isn’t going anywhere.

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